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Max Abraham Lichtenstein * 1874

Steenwisch 70 (Eimsbüttel, Stellingen)

HIER WOHNTE
MAX ABRAHAM
LICHTENSTEIN
JG. 1874
DEPORTIERT 1942
THERESIENSTADT
ERMORDET 5.12.1942

further stumbling stones in Steenwisch 70:
Rebecka Lichtenstein

Max Abraham Lichtenstein, born 02/06/1874, deported to Theresienstadt on 07/19/1942, died there on 12/05/1942
Bertha Rebecka Lichtenstein, née Salomon, born 12/03/1879, deported to Theresienstadt on 07/19/1942, deported on to Auschwitz on 12/18/1943

Steenwisch 70

Max Lichtenstein was the son of Abraham Isaak Lichtenstein and his wife Marianne, née Braunschweiger. At the registration office, his nationality was given as "Prussian” on account of the fact that the city of Altona that had been Danish up to 1864 was ceded to Prussia after the war of 1866. Independent Jewish communities existed in the formally Danish areas around Hamburg; in Altona, this was the "Hochdeutsche Israelitengemeinde”, to which the Lichtenstein family belonged.

Max’ father had already been a cattle trader and butcher with his own shop. At the age of five, Max suffered a severe injury at his father’s slaughterhouse: he fell from the winch under the ceiling and injured his hip. The result was a shortened leg, and a lifelong handicap. At the age of six, Max entered the Jewish Boys’ School in Altona. When he was fourteen, his parents sent him to a Butcher’s apprenticeship in East Frisia. Years of learning and wandering followed. In spring of 1895, Max Lichtenstein was back in Hamburg, where he changed residence about twenty-five times in the following thirteen years. He lived as a sub-tenant in Hamburg, staying for a couple of months here, rarely half a year there, rarely more than a year at one place. He lived in Neuer Steinweg on and off and in the 1st and 3rd Elbstrasse, once in Grindelallee, in Hütten; several times, his address was Peterstrasse, Jägerstrasse and Adolphstrasse (that later was renamed Steenwisch). He is supposed to have been independent since 1901. Once, he had moved, "address unknown.” This went on until the end of 1908, the year he married Rebecka Salomon.

Rebecka, born on December 3rd, 1879 in Nieder-Ochtenhausen near Bremervörde, also came from a Jewish family. The couple took permanent residence at Osterstrasse 166, 2nd floor, in Hamburg-Eimsbüttel. Their daughter Irma Marianne was born in 1912. On account of his handicap, Max Lichtenstein was unable to serve in World War I, as his daughter recalled in the 1950s, and had recorded by a notary in New York in 1959: "From 1914 to 1918, my father spent much of his time in a Hamburg barracks and working for the German army as a cattle trader.”

At the end of the war, Rebecka was six years old. When the landlord required the family’s apartment in Osterstrasse for himself, Max Lichtenstein bought a 465 square meter (5,005 sq. feet) property in Stellingen-Langenfelde, Adolphstrasse 36, with a tenement building (now Steenwisch 70). From October 1918, the Lichtensteins lived on the ground floor, three rooms, kitchen, closet and toilet. The apartments above them were rented out, one of them to a couple named Heidmann. Daughter Irma recalled:

"Extensive repairs were performed immediately after we moved in, and behind the house, an officially approved slaughterhouse was built next to the existing buildings such as carriage house, stable and hayloft. The slaughterhouse was used regularly up to the inflation era; I clearly remember this because I had to call the veterinarian every time [there had been slaughtering] in the afternoon, as neither the meat nor any other parts of the animal were allowed to leave the premises before everything had been inspected and marked with the official stamps.”

Max Lichtenstein did part of the slaughtering himself, but he also hired other butchers to do it for him. In the first years, he delivered the meat to customers with a horse cart. From around 1923, he also had slaughtering done at the municipal slaughterhouse in Kampstrasse. His daughter recalled that he had lost his wealth in the inflation [of 1923] and probably had to start over again. "Once a week (on Thursdays) he went to the cattle market at the corner of Heiligengeistfeld to buy his oxen…” Officially weighed and marked with a combination of letters and numbers, the animals were then driven through a tunnel to the slaughterhouse. According to the butcher Karl Binder, who also testified at the Hamburg compensation hearing in 1960, Lichtenstein bought about 10 to 15 animals per week, each at an average price of 700 RM.

Karl Binder, an independent master slaughterer, also worked for Max Lichtenstein. "He bought the cattle, and I was paid per head for driving the animals to the slaughterhouse, slaughtering and cleaving, and I delivered the meat back to him. And he sold it, as before, to butcher shops and meat packers.” And daughter Irma continued: "On Thursday afternoons, the customers came to pick the meat that was sold by the quarter [animal]; and if they had no time, my father delivered it to them, because he had had all his customers for a long time, and they knew they could rely on him, because he had a good name.” The shops he supplied were mostly in Eimsbüttel and Altona, among them, as Karl binder still recalled in 1960: "Oldenburg (Hamburg-Altona, Königstrasse), Alfons Werner (Hamburg, Talstrasse), Schröder (Eimsbüttel, Methfesselstrasse), Hermann Fricke (Hamburg-Altona, Herderstrasse)…” The sausage factory of Conrad Faul in Heussweg/ corner of Hellkamp was also mentioned.

Butcher Binder’s duties included delivering the meat, as Max Lichtenstein only had a horse cart. The buildings behind the apartment house now served as garages. A certain Hermann Meier, who had rented a space for his truck there (and still rented it in 1952), used his vehicle to deliver meat for wholesale butchers on weekdays, Max Lichtenstein was among them. Max did his office work from home, because at the slaughterhouse he had only a small desk where documents could be temporarily locked away.

In Karl Binder’s opinion, Max Lichtenstein was well-to-do. "Of course, I don’t know what kind of profit he made on each animal; altogether, I got the impression that he was well situated. His home, his clothes, his general appearance were all very respectable and decent.”

Daughter Irma Lichtenstein had absolved an apprenticeship as a clerk and worked at Hausmakler Sally Kleve’s, a real estate agency, from 1934 to February, 1936 (cf. Sally Kleve). The Kleves and the Lichtensteins were related. A Cousin lived in the U.S.A. On February 18th, 1936, Irma was issued a visitor’s visa at the American Consulate General in Hamburg. From June 8th on, she was listed as "departed to East Orange (U.S.A.)” in the Hamburg population registry. Because she was unable to get a working permit there, she took a boat to Cuba, and returned with an immigration visa on November 3rd, 1936 on the British steamer Berengaria.

In Germany, the registration of Jewish-owned business enterprises began. The historian Frank Bajohr has described the procedure in Hamburg: From April, 1937, Stellingen-Langenfelde belonged to Hamburg. The former town finance offices in the incorporated areas (Harburg-Wilhelmsburg, Altona, and Wandsbek) compiled lists of enterprises (in the so-called Old Hamburg Areas this was the police headquarters’ job). When Gauleiter and Reich Governor Karl Kaufmann had ordered the elimination of Jewish suppliers, the Hamburg welfare administration in December, 1937, was the first authority to systematically identify all Jewish enterprises among its suppliers. The registration of all Jewish-owned enterprises began in July, 1938 by order of the Reich Ministry of the Interior. "My father gradually lost all his customers in the Hitler era”, Irma recalled; "first, the civil servants were forbidden to buy from Jews, and then the other customers were afraid to buy from my father”; and Karl Binder added that her father was banned from entering the slaughterhouse from April 1st, 1937. "After the discriminating measures against Jews began, here among other things the ban on entering the slaughterhouse, I could no longer maintain contact with Herr Lichtenstein.”

By the end of 1938, the Nazi regime had aggravated its measures against Jewish-owned business to an extent that "a policy that joined open terror with organized forced emigration and financial repression with forced ‘aryanization’ (Bajohr) was established. Thus, the exclusion of Jews from economic life was completed with a few months. Max Lichtenstein had already been banned from his trade in 1937, as a retroactively issued character reference from the Hamburg association of wholesale butchers proves.

In December, 1938, he had to pay the first installment of the "atonement payment”, half a year later the "levy on Jewish assets”, each amounting to several thousand reichsmarks. At the beginning of 1939, he and his wife – like all Jews – were forced to apply for the middle name "Israel”, respectively "Sara.”

Max Lichtenstein was served a summons to the Currency Bureau of the Chief Finance Administrator for June 13th, 1929, to "give information about his assets.” He submitted a depot statement. The couple lived from rent income, capital and returns on capital. As monthly expenses for their livelihood, they claimed 250 RM. The property was free of debt, its value declared as 12.500 RM. The wife, now Bertha Rebecka Sara, had no assets of her own. The Currency Bureau acknowledged that the Lichtensteins had no intention to emigrate and initially did not issue a "security order”; however, it did so in February, 1940. In its letter sent by registered mail with affidavit of service, Max Lichtenstein was ordered to open a "security account with limited disposition with a currency bank in his name within 5 days following receipt” of the letter. "Further existing bank, savings bank and postal accounts may be maintained”, it said in the letter; however, "you may only dispose of the money in these accounts by transferring it to your security account with limited disposition. Without special approval, you may dispose of the balance in the security account up to an amount of 250 RM per calendar month. The possession of cash amounts higher than the monthly allowance is not admissible. Payments of any kind in cash may not be accepted.”

If he owned real estate and had appointed a German-blooded property manager, the letter continued, the following applied: only the property manager may accept the rental payments, who, in turn, was only allowed to make payments to third parties only to the extent necessary for managing the property. Max Lichtenstein had indeed appointed a "German-blooded” property manager, who remained in office after the expropriation in September of 1942 and the subsequent administration of the property by the Hamburgische Grundstücksgesellschaft von 1938 m.b.H. The property manager (and also his successor) had personally rented garages at Steenwisch 70. Thus, both men and their wives received the official form Dev. VI. 3 Nr. 3. Max Lichtenstein sent out eight such messages, requesting his garage renters to only make payments to the account 39/5 with the Hamburger Sparcasse von 1827. The tenants of the apartments also received such registered letters.

Max Lichtenstein also sold his securities, a transaction that did not require permission from the Currency Bureau, provided the proceeds were deposited in the "security account.” On the other hand, the slightest bill from a craftsman needed an authorization for payment from the Bureau, e.g. a carpenter’s invoice of December 23rd, 1940 for 133 RM for four sandboxes he had built for the air raid shelter in the cellar.

In the USA, daughter Irma in 1940 had married Wilhelm Adler, a native of Gussmannsdorf near Würzburg, born May 20th, 1897. Adler, 15 years older than Irma, had been a cattle trader like his father-in-law, but had absolved training as a mechanic before his emigration. The Lichtensteins never learned that a grandson named Stanley David Adler was born to them four years after their daughter’s marriage.

From September 19th, 1941, all Jews aged six years or more had to wear a yellow cloth star with the letters JUDE in black permanently sewn to the left side of the chest of their clothing. The Jewish representatives were ordered to organize the distribution of the stars, and the Jews had to buy the palm-sized discriminating badges for 10 pfennigs each.

From October, 1941 the "core Reich” was systematically made "free of Jews.” Pursuant to the directives of the Reichssicherheitshauptamt, Jews over 65 years of age, frail people between 55 and 65 years, Jews in "mixed marriages”, Jews with foreign citizenship and men with decorations from World War I were initially exempt and thus were not included in the first large deportations. Then, Reinhard Heydrich announced that the Ghetto Theresienstadt, originally designated for Jews from the protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia, was now also to serve as an "old folks’ ghetto” for German Jews. From June, 1942 on, Jews aged 65 or more, mutilated war veterans, "mongrel Jews” and "Aryan associated Jews” were deported there with the members of their family. Max Lichtenstein was 68 years old at the time, his wife 63. They paid 8,870 RM from their account to "buy themselves into a home” in Theresienstadt, as if it was a senior citizens’ residence. On July 19th, 1942, the Lichtensteins were deported to Theresienstadt, where they arrived a day later with transport VI/2. For Max Lichtenstein, the ghetto was the end. The Jewish community of Hamburg, where he had been a member from 1930 to 1942, noted "emigration” on his card.

On September 25th, 1942, the property Steenwisch 70 passed to the ownership of the German Reich; a tenant moved into the ground floor apartment. It is unknown who he was, only that he was indicted for some reason in 1946 and then was no longer listed as a tenant. At the beginning of the 1950s, Irma Adler filed a claim for compensation and demanded the return of her parents’ house and property. In the course of these proceedings, the special bureau of vital statistics in Arolsen, County Waldeck on February 21st, 1956 issued the special death certificate no. 227/1956 for Max Abraham Lichtenstein. According to this document, he died on December 5th, 1942 in Theresienstadt. Soon after the death of her husband, Bertha Rebecka Lichtenstein was deported on to Auschwitz with transport Ds on December 18th, 1942. A last sign of life from her is referenced in a handwritten note in the population registry file of 1943: "Lichtenstein is supposed to be no longer alive. (Message from his wife to Frau… Heidmann, Steenwisch 70).” She was declared dead by court order effective May 8th, 1945.

At the initiative of a nephew in the U.S.A., memorial pages for Max and Bertha Rebecka Lichtenstein have been deposited at Yad Vashem.


Translated by Peter Hubschmid
Kindly supported by the Hermann Reemtsma Stiftung, Hamburg.

Stand: March 2017
© Ursel Leilich

Quellen: 1; 2; 3; 4; 7; 8; StaH 332-8 (Meldewesen), A 34/1 (Alphabetische Meldekartei von "Groß-Altona" 1919 bis 31.7.1943); StaH 332-8 (Meldewesen), A 32/10 Band 22 (Meldebücher und -karteien der Randgemeinden vor der Einglie­derung in die Stadt Altona./10: Stellingen Langenfelde, Band 22: Alphabetische Meldekartei 1915–1927); StaH 332-8 (Meldewesen), A 31 Band 2 (Altona und Randgemeinden Chronologisches Register der 1872 in Altona (z. T. auch in Ottensen) Angemeldeten, mit Anmeldung bis 1889); StaH 332-8 (Meldewesen), A 30 (Althamburgisches Gebiet 1892–1925 Alphabetische Meldekartei); StaH 522-1 (Jüdische Gemeinden), Abl. 1993, Ordner 10; StaH 522-1 (Jüdische Ge­meinden), 992e Bd. 7 (Theresienstadt, Deportationsliste vom 19.7.1942); StaH 351-11 (AfW), Abl. 2008/01 200112 und Beiakte A, Irma Adler; StaH 314-15 (OFP), R 1940/136 und V 1/291 Bd. 1 und 2; Bundesarchiv Berlin, Liste der jüdischen Einwohner in deutschen Reich 1933–1945; AB Hamburg 1901, 1928, 1941; AB Hamburg (Al­tona) 1910; Frank Bajohr, "Arisierung" in Hamburg. Die Verdrängung der jüdischen Un­ter­nehmer 1933–1945, Hamburg 1998, S. 120, 266, 303 und 342; Beate Meyer (Hrsg.) "Die Verfolgung und Ermordung der Hamburger Juden 1933–1945, Hamburg/Göttingen 2006, S. 70; "Lexikon des Holocaust", Hrsg. Wolfgang Benz, Schlagwort Kennzeichnung, München 2002.
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